The effect of fixation transitions on quiet eye duration and performance in the soccer penalty kick: instep versus inside kicks

Abstract

Male goalkeepers of intermediate skill level attempted to stop penalty kicks executed with the instep and inside foot, in situ. A mobile eye tracker and an external camera were used to collect the gaze and motor behaviors of the goalkeepers, as well as the penalty takers' motor behaviors and flight of the ball. Percent saves was greater during instep (28%) than inside foot kicks (12%), but we detected few differences in fixation frequency, location, duration, or transitions that could be attributed to the type of kick used. Fixation transitions (or the frequency of gaze shifts between locations) were significantly higher on goals than on saves. During the final phase of the kicking action, the quiet eye was located on the visual pivot and was longer during saves than goals. Furthermore, when the final fixation on the ball exceeded approximately 1,100 ms, then the likelihood of goals increased. The results are discussed in light of past studies in goaltending and the dual demands of motor tasks that require information be fixated both early and late at spatial locations that exceed the limits of focal vision.

The Use of Patterns to Disguise Environmental Cues During an Anticipatory Judgment Task

“…There is evidence 14 that skilled soccer players rely on information from the hip region, when 15 making anticipation judgments (Smeeton & Williams, 2012), implying that this 16 group would be more likely to be negatively impacted if information from this 17 area of the body was disguised. However, it may be that the skilled individuals 18 are fixating the hip region as a 'visual pivot', whereby they can optimize the 19 use of the fovea and parafovea (Piras & Vickers, 2011). If this is the case, the 20 disguised uniforms may be disrupting the relative motions or relationships 21 between other information sources, such as the trunk and the non-kicking leg, 22 both of which have been shown to contain information related to kicking 23 direction and height (Williams & Burwitz, 1993;Williams & Davids, 1998).…”

Goalkeeping in the soccer penalty kick

“…Thus far there has been no single study investigating the information that goalkeepers use-or potentially can use-to time the dive. Indeed, with a few noticeable exceptions (see below), also recent in situ experiments in penalty kicking still focus primarily on information underpinning spatial control (e. g., Dicks, Button, & Davids, 2010b;Lopes et al, 2014a;Piras & Vickers, 2011).…”

Visual search strategy of soccer players according to different age groups

“…Ward and Williams 11 found that players between 9 and 13 years of age are more likely to use task-irrelevant information when compared with U-15 and U-17 players. Our findings suggest that although of "space" looks to be the most important source of information in this task and also a visual pivot, spend too much time looking it might impairs player's decision making, as a cost benefit between "reading" the game and acting 20,26 , because the older categories used this information less frequently. Additionally, an alternative explanation is related to the film task, which was used in an aerial perspective in our study.…”

“…Another explanation might be linked to the "visual pivot", which is a behaviour of the gaze centred between points of interests (e.g. ball and teammates), thus enabling the optimal usage of both parafoveal and foveal vision 20 . In this study, the visual search for "space" could be have used also as pivot to facilitate the gaze switch to other areas of interests.…”